Summary

Invites BS to visit Down. Advises him to call on Daniel Sharpe. Suggests he see the work of the Ordnance Survey in Wales.

Offers to lend him Murchison’s The Silurian system [3 vols. (1839)].

Summary

A page of [unspecified] text is missing from a parcel of material received from GRW.

CD "hopes and expects to live to see Carboniferous, & perhaps even Silurian, mammifers!"

Has several questions to ask whenever they meet.

Summary

Is sending through John Blunt a copy of the last geological report of the state of New York along with a short paper on the tornado that passed through the state of New Jersey in June 1835.

Summary

Discourses on the rights of animals.

Summary

Does not care which photograph is engraved. Hopes to get specimens of Eozoon canadense for J. V. Carus.

Summary

Asks GHD to look in William Thomson’s book [W. Thomson and P. G. Tait, Treatise on natural philosophy, vol. 1 (1867)] to see how many million years ago Thomson says earth’s crust solidified. CD is troubled by "brevity of the world", because pre-Silurian creatures must have lived during endless ages "else my views wd be wrong, which is impossible – Q.E.D.".

Summary

Asks whether Crustacea from temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere are more strongly analogous to those in same latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere than are Arctic to Antarctic Crustacea.

Discusses astonishing finds of mammalian and reptilian remains in Purbeck beds; notes reactions of Lyell.

Has doubts about Richard Owen’s recent classification of mammals [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.) 2 (1858): 1–37].

Works away [on Natural selection].

Asa Gray has given valuable assistance.

Summary

Nearly agrees on contemporaneity, but THH pushes his ideas too far. Would require strong evidence before believing that the so-called Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous strata could be contemporaneous. Thinks THH’s case on advancement of organisation is strong. But he should read Bronn, before publishing again, and say more on other side. Cannot help hoping he is not as right as he seems to be.

Summary

Discusses various types of coral reefs on which he has been collecting notes. Views of C. G. Ehrenberg. His conception of the formation of Bermuda.

Pessimistic about the effect of his poor health on his scientific work.

Summary

Sends CD an English translation of his preface to the revised German edition of Origin and asks his opinion of it.

Asks CD where he might get a specimen of Eozoon.

Summary

Thanks for writing. Had disbelieved the story. He has seen Dr Hahn’s slides and it is clear that Hahn cannot distinguish between mineral and organic structures.

Summary

Sends three tables on the known geological distribution of genera and subgenera of Brachiopoda. Has been continually puzzled by intermediate forms, and is convinced that the greater number of species can be linked together. "Natura non facit saltum."

Summary

Did not know about separation between Silurian and Cambrian.

Cannot attend Geological Society meeting.

Etty [Henrietta Darwin] ill.

Sedgwick in his attack at Cambridge Philosophical Society states "there must be [on CD’s theory] large genera not varying".

Discusses migration of plants and animals from Old World to New.

Views of Asa Gray on Aster.

Mentions flora of coal period.

Has been elected to Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

Summary

Comments on JDH’s list – very good, but Orchids and Primula paper have too indirect a bearing to be worth mentioning. The Eozoon is a very important fact and to a much lesser degree the Archaeopteryx. Müller’s Für Darwin [1864] perhaps the most important contribution.

CD has forgotten to mention Bates on variation and JDH’s Arctic paper ["Distribution of Arctic plants", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 251–348] in new edition of Origin.

Now finds that Owen claims to be originator of natural selection.

Summary

MS of a paper called "Comments on Mr Darwin’s grand theory", which generally supports CD but proposes that present flightless birds are primitive. Paper supplemented by a diagram showing the phylogeny of birds.

Summary

Thanks GdeS for communicating his discovery. It is especially important at a time when several naturalists have declared that development occurs quite suddenly at intervals. Joseph Le Conte in N. America urges that even new families and orders are developed within an extremely short period.

Summary

Encloses report on his paper "Old age characteristics among ammonites", [Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 17 (1875): 236–41].

Stability of long inherited characters. Dependence of some recently acquired characters on the environment.